: An American student falls in love with a handsome millionaire with sadistic inclinations. Trying to return her beloved to a normal life, the girl accepts his conditions, is defeated and breaks up with him.

The novel was written on behalf of Anastacia Steele - a pale, awkward girl with naughty dark blond hair and blue eyes. Friends call her Ana. The girl is studying at the University of Vancouver at the Department of Philology. For the university newspaper, Ana’s girlfriend, future journalist Catherine, should interview Christian Gray, a millionaire and university sponsor, but because of the flu, she cannot go to Seattle and asks for Ana.

Armed with a voice recorder and a list of questions, Ana is in a twenty-story building where the Gray Empire is located. To the surprise of the girl, the millionaire is young and handsome: a slender figure, dark copper hair and penetrating gray eyes. Ana feels uncomfortable under his gaze and constantly blushes. During the interview, Ana realizes that Gray is very confident and keeps everything under control.

Unlimited power is possessed only by one who is deep down convinced that he was born to rule others.

He seems to be oppressive to the girl and scares her a little, but at the same time, Anu is very attracted to him. Reading questions prepared by her friend, Ana learns that Gray is an adopted child. Finally, leaving the office, Ana sighs with relief: they will never see each other again.

In her free time, Ana earns money as a saleswoman in a private shop for tools and building materials. A week later, Gray appears in the store. Having bought ropes and cable ties from the stunned Ana, Christian asks about the interview and offers to arrange a small photo session for him. Anya has to admit that she is crazy about Gray.

Photoshoot takes place at the most luxurious hotel in Portland. Then Gray invites Anu for coffee. He asks the girl about her family. Ana talks about her mother and her fourth husband, and about her second stepfather Ray, who replaced Ana with a father whom the girl does not remember. Gray asks him to be called Christian, and talks about his adoptive parents and half-brothers and sisters. Returning to the hotel with Christian, Ana falls and almost falls under the wheels of a bicycle. Gray hugs her, and the girl for the first time in her life wants to be kissed. But instead of kissing, Christian says that she should stay away from him. Ana believes she is unworthy of Gray.

We are two different poles, creatures from different worlds. I’m like Icarus, who rose too close to the sun, and eventually fell and crashed.

Kate is sure that Gray likes her friend, but considers him a dangerous person.

Final exams passed. Ana and Kate go to a bar to celebrate this event. Drunk, Ana calls Gray, and he comes for her. Christian manages to protect Ana from a longtime friend who suddenly begins to pester the girl. Then Anya becomes ill, and Gray takes her to her hotel room. In the morning, Gray admits that he, too, is attracted to Anya, but he is not a hero-lover, does not start novels, and he has peculiar tastes. Ana does not give up, and he promises to explain everything.

In the evening, Gray takes Anastacia in a private helicopter to his apartment in Seattle. Before revealing his secret, he asks Anu to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then Gray shows the girl his "room for games" - a room trimmed with burgundy leather, and full of frames, crosses, chains and whips. To herself, Ana calls the "game room" the Red Room of Pain.

I seemed to be transported in time in the sixteenth century, in the era of the Spanish Inquisition.

Christian turns out to be a dominant sadist. He offers Anya to become his submissive - the one who obeys.Gray demands absolute submission from her. If the girl agrees, she will sign a contract, which stipulates the limits of the permissible. Gray warns that they will not have normal relations. Ana is shocked, but at the same time, she is irresistibly attracted to Christian. When he asks about her preferences in sex in order to add this to the contract, the girl admits that she has not been with a man yet. Christian is amazed, because Anya is already 21 years old. He decides to fix it and spend the night with the girl without his games.

The night with Christian seems magical to the girl. Christian says that at the age of fifteen he was involved in a BDSM relationship with a friend of his adoptive mother. He was her submissive for six years. Christian never had a normal relationship with girls. Ana hates this woman and pity Gray.

At home, Ana carefully studies the contract. She is in love, but she can stay with her beloved only on his terms. Ana decides to take a chance, hoping with her love to turn Gray into a normal person. Christian gives Anya a laptop, and they communicate a lot via email. It is easier for a girl to communicate with Gray through letters - when Ana sees him, she ceases to think.

Ana and Kate are packing to move to Seattle, where Ana will have two interviews with publishers. Then Anastacia discusses a contract with Gray. The girl does not tolerate pain and is afraid of it, but Christian insists on punishments:

There is a very fine line between pleasure and pain, Anastacia. Two sides of the same coin, they do not exist without each other. I can show you how pleasant pain can be.

Christian has several oddities: he does not allow throwing away food, looking himself in the eyes and touching himself, because he has experienced “fifty shades of evil”.

Gray, as the main sponsor, presents diplomas to university graduates. From his speech, Ana learns that as a child, Gray had to starve. Ana Ray's stepfather arrives at graduation, and Christian captivates him in five minutes. Ana tells Gray that she is not happy with these strange relationships, and she wants more, but Christian is so beautiful that she agrees to a contract.

Soon Anu overtakes the first punishment: Gray eighteen times slaps her on the buttocks for the fact that the girl rolls her eyes in protest. After the execution, Ana experiences a "strange, but pleasant feeling of satisfaction and security."

Girlfriends move to Seattle, and Ana gets acquainted with the Red Room of Pain and the Christian stack. To the surprise of the girl, she almost likes this experience, and the pain no longer seems so terrible. In the process, Ana notices round marks on Christian's chest resembling chickenpox scars. In the evening, Gray leads Anu to dinner with her parents. Until now, they considered their son to be gay, and now they are glad that he came with a girl. At the table, Christian's mother says that her adopted son never had chickenpox.

That evening, Ana decides to go to Georgia with her mother. Christian learns about this, gets angry, and Ana begins to realize that she is afraid of his unpredictability, unexpected outbursts of anger, which are inevitably followed by punishment. She wants to get away from him and think things over.

Christian is not a hero, but a person with serious emotional disorders who drags me into the darkness. Will I be able to bring him to the light?

Gray persuades her to stay. He is in love with a girl in his own way. Until now, he had only specially trained submissives, he does not know how to deal with a normal girl, but promises to try for the sake of Ana. The girl manages to make Christian tell that his mother was a drug addict and died when he was four years old. He vaguely remembers how his mother mocked him.

Ana successfully passes an interview in a small private publishing house and flies away to her mother. Christian does not stand long without her and flies in after him. They spend a wonderful night, and at dawn they fly on a glider - this is one of Gray's extreme hobbies. Like Kate, Ana's mother is convinced that Gray is crazy about her daughter, and advises him to be accepted as he is.

Ana finds out that Christian continues to meet with his first BDSM partner - she became his friend. The girl is jealous. She again sees the scars on Gray's chest and realizes that these are traces of cigarette burns. Ana suspects that this was done by a woman who seduced Christian in her youth, but he denies everything and assures that this woman saved him from a more terrible fate. Gray is used to seeing obedient women next to him; he is confused by Ana's behavior and her attitude towards him. In the end, he offers a compromise: Ana will be his submissive only in the Red Room of Pain, and the rest of the time he will be her boyfriend. Ana is glad that for her, he is ready for more.

I want Christian Gray's love. In the very depths of my soul there is a need for love and care, so I'm not in a hurry to advertise our strange relationship.

Gray seems Anya beautiful, unique and mysterious. Due to its complex nature, which combines a hundred subtle nuances, the girl increasingly calls him to herself Fifty Shades.

Ana returns to Seattle, full of the brightest hopes. She is no longer afraid of the "game room". To her disappointment, she learns that Christian did not refuse punishment, he still wants to hurt her. He knows the reason for this desire, but does not want to talk about her Ana, fearing that she will turn away from him.

He needs help. Christian's fear is so obvious! .. But I can console him. Follow him into his darkness and bring him to the light.

She decides to take a chance and asks Gray to punish her the way he wants. Gray smacks the girl with a belt so cruelly that she understands: he is not able to love, in his soul there is nothing but a thirst for pain. The darkness of Gray is too impenetrable for her. Ana tells him that they have no future - she cannot satisfy his dark needs, and he cannot love her. Gray begs her not to leave, assuring that she cannot live without her, but Ana leaves. At home, it seems to Anastacia that “the pain of being hit by a belt is nothing compared to” her immense sorrow.